New Delhi, May 08: Seeking to resolve the controversy over alleged manipulated price hike of compressed natural gas (CNG), the Supreme Court today asked the Petroleum Ministry and the Delhi government to file their responses on affidavits of Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) defending the hike. A bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice Arijit Pasayat sought the responses when Harish Salve charged IGL, the sole distributor of CNG in capital, of playing with figures to justify the steep hike of price from Rs 13.11 per kg to Rs 16.83 per kg.
On the allegation of the Delhi government's counsel Wasim Quadri that IGL had issued unwritten instruction not to give vehicles more than a certain quantity of CNG, which was denied by IGL, the court directed IGL to give a public notice within a day or two announcing that there was no such restriction on vehicles filling their gas tanks.
Salve said the price calculation was based on requirement of buses determined at 70 kg per day per bus, but the IGL has hiked the price saying the average intake of each bus was around 50 kg per day.
He said IGL had never disputed the requirement of 70kg per day per bus but suddenly quoted a market survey to justify the price hike.
Appearing for IGL, senior advocate P Chidambaram said that though the compression capacity of IGL at present was around 12 lakh kg CNG, the dispensation was seven lakh kg.
The price hike was based on actual sales figures and not on surmises, he said and expressed the company's willingness to submit their records for independent auditing.
The matter would now be heard in July.
Bureau Report